I remember being a teenager and obtaining my copy of " Initiation into hermetics". I had read the reviews online and people raved about it. With the potential to learn how to create fire, control the weather and levitate literally in my hands, I was ready to conquer the world.

And then I began training my Self in Bardon's system of personal development. Because I already had some basic occult training under my belt by that point, I skipped around the book and wanted to learn the fun stuff right away. 20 years later and I still haven't thrown a physical fireball or created fire :(

So I went back to the beginning, practicing sitting a desired position for set periods of time, starting with 10 minutes and working my way up a full hour of sitting in silence and comfort. This skill has serve me well for the last 20 years of my life and it's one of the take-aways from bardons' system that make me grateful for having owned the book.

Now the question is this: Does bardons system work? Is it possible to throw fireballs and paralyze others with the ability to condense the earth element? Absolutely, depending upon your dedication and your ability to apply your training.

Whether or not bardon accomplished any of these feats is something that we may never know. There is a possibility that he did accomplish most of them but he did so during astral projection and then again there is the possibility that he was able to activate these abilities while in his physical body.

The answer(s) to these question will depend the person asking: if the querent themselves is not yet able to perform these feats, then they will seem like fiction and if the querent can perform these feats, then they will appear to be "old hat"

In my experience with bardons' system, the easiest bits of magic to perform center around the accumulation and use of vital force. I believe this is the easiest place to start because we unconsciously/consciously manipulate vital force everyday. We each absorb varying amounts, although our capacity to do so can be increased through training of the physical and occult bodies.

Speaking of experience, I've found ( much like others who have used this system) that the more way to approach it to determine what exactly what you want to accomplish in life. Once you determine what your long term and short term goals are, you can then determine which skills you need to learn in order to materialize them on the physical plane. This is the one mistake I made at the outset of my studies; I was attempting to learn the system for the sake of learning the system, with no long term or short term goals in mind.

Although Bardon seems to believe that magic shouldn't used for personal gain; I believe that it is impossible NOT to use magic to achieve our ends.

Bardon also created a system of magical evocation complete with a slew of various spirits. I personally have no experience with these spirits and have no desire to interact with them at this point. Why? Because I have incredible success using tried and true grimoires such as the lemegeton, the red dragon, the black dragon, the honorius angelic grimoire, and the heptameron angelic grimoire.. If it ain't broke, then don't try to fix it, is what i say. To each their own... These spirits have more than enough entities for the curious magician to explore and discover.

So where does that leave us? Here's my take on the system: it is complete and it is possible to attain all of these abilities, so long as you have the time and patience and desire to do so. In addition, it is missing some "things" and when these "things" are put into the system, it will wok REALLY well. But if you want to experience super-powerful manifestations and attain everything you want in life, then I suggest the following: